Advisors… start your engines for September’s Life Insurance Awareness Month (LIAM). This national education campaign, which is coordinated by the nonprofit organization Life Happens, is designed to get consumers to take stock of their life insurance needs and protect their loved ones with proper insurance planning.

This year the celebrity spokesperson is racecar driver Danica Patrick. Her universal appeal makes her a perfect choice to get the word out about the importance of life insurance. She has a personal message for us in the life insurance industry, which you can watch here: www.lifehappens.org/spokesperson.

Don’t take that risk

Her message is straightforward: “Driving racecars is risky. Not having life insurance to protect your loved ones is riskier.” Both in her public service announcement and all the resources that Life Happens has created around her message, she is candid about this fact saying: “So many people don’t have life insurance. That’s just an unnecessary risk. It means leaving your loved ones to suffer financially if something happened to you.”

Also, she also has a personal story of loss. Both her parents lost their fathers when they were teens. Neither of them had life insurance. Danica’s mom was one of five kids and remembers her mom (Danica’s grandmother) having to sell off most of the family farm as a result. Danica adds: “My parents made sure they had coverage to take care of my sister and me in case something happened to them.”

Here is the great public service announcement for consumers that Danica does about the importance of life insurance, which will be aired nationally on TV and radio during LIAM and through the end of the year. You can share it with your clients and prospects: www.lifehappens.org/danica.

Here are other great resources you can use to get her message out:

• Downloadable flyer with Danica's message
• Downloadable, up-close-and-personal interview with Danica
• Great photo graphics, for social media or promotion, featuring her wise words on life insurance

But that’s just the start. Life Happens has a whole range of LIAM marketing materials that you can use, including:

• 3 brand new Real Life Stories videos and flyers
• 4 new “don’t take that risk” flyers
• A new “don’t take that risk” video that is perfect for social media
• more than 2 dozen new “infosnacks” featuring 2016 Insurance Barometer stats
• 3 longer-format infographics
• A complete month of prewritten Facebook posts and tweets—just copy and paste!

For access, go to www.lifehappens.org/liam. Remember that you’ll need to either sign in (or sign up, if you haven’t already) to your free account.

If you’d like to take full advantage of all LIAM resources, check out Life Happens Pro. It allows you to personalize materials with your contact information and logo, embed videos, email resources, share social-media resources directly, and much more. Go to www.LifeHappensPro.org. There is a free, 30-day trial, and NAIFA members get a discount off the monthly price with the code NAIFA29, and yearly with the code NAIFA299.

Let’s make this our best LIAM yet!

Bio:
Maggie Leyes oversees content strategy for Life Happens. She has been writing about the insurance and finance industry for more than 15 years.